


How We Got Here, Vaguely

by putconspiraciesinit



Series: Emperor Burr AU [2]
Category: 19th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, Political RPF - US 19th c.
Genre: Alternate History, Character Study, Family Feels, Introspection, M/M, Politics, Revolution, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/putconspiraciesinit/pseuds/putconspiraciesinit
Summary: The American Empire's highest-ranking people reflect on the takeover and their lives as royalty contrasted with their former lives as commoners.





	How We Got Here, Vaguely

**Author's Note:**

> The American Empire comprises former America, Mexico, and Quebec. Burr took over in 1805.

Many of the members of the imperial court were acquainted with how it felt to know you’d be attacked soon. The suspense of sitting around waiting for armed assailants to burst in and try to kill you. Those of the courtiers who’d fought in the war all those decades ago, back in the 1770s, were more familiar with the whole situation than they would have liked to be. But just like it had been back then, there was nothing they could do. The battle was coming to them, whether they wanted to fight it or not.

 

***

 

Emperor Aaron I of America had been cursed and reviled by the people since long before the monarchy had been established. He could still remember when exactly it had started; forty years ago now, back in 1791. Back when his biggest issue was Alexander Hamilton and the high federalist press. Back when he was just Aaron Burr Jr., a naive lawyer who made the mistake of jumping head-first into the deep end of politics.

In ‘91, assassinations seemed like some far-off thing that only happened to people a hundred times higher up on the ladder than Aaron. People like George Washington, or John Adams. Or maybe Alexander Hamilton, whom Aaron had personally shot dead to put a definitive end to their rivalry. Or Thomas Jefferson, the biggest threat Aaron had ever defeated; he’d never forget the day he gave the order that saw that horrid excuse for a president hanged.

Now, in ‘31--1831--assassinations were more of a weekly issue. They had been for thirty years; Aaron wondered sometimes what it meant, that he’d survived more attempts on his life as vice-president than as emperor. Perhaps there was something about being an official head of state that made some factions less eager to kill you. Or maybe increased funding to the education sector had upped his approval rating a bit. Either way, the people had been on Aaron’s case for forty years, and it hadn’t really gotten much better or worse like one might expect it to.

Which, of course, could only mean a revolution was inevitable.

 

Not during Aaron’s reign, of course. That had ended a while ago; he’d retired on his sixty-fifth birthday, ten years ago. But Theodosia was a harsher ruler than her father. Tougher on criminals, tougher still on dissenters. She’d revelled in it, in a way. The people had refused to acknowledge her individual humanity since she was only eight years old, since back in 1791, back when she was just Theodosia Burr, the only biological child of the man the press hated most. Since then, she was never her own person. People used her every move against her father somehow, tried to make her into a weapon they could use against the person she was closest to in the whole world; well, if they wanted her to be a weapon so badly, then she would be one, and wreak her wrath upon the country that had tried to tear her family apart.

Theodosia had practically grown up on the uncomfortable knowledge that if she was ever soft--like her father had made the mistake of being--the people would rip her to shreds like they did him. So she would rip them to shreds first.

 

Joseph, Prince Consort, hadn’t really planned on marrying into what would one day become the royal family. Of course, as the marriage had occurred in 1801, he had known they were an infamous bunch. And he would admit that he’d found Aaron intimidating pretty much from the day they’d met, and Theodosia even more so--that was part of what he loved about her, how  _ terrifying _ she could be. But if somebody had told him in 1801 that only four years from then he and his son would bear the title of prince, he would have given that somebody quite the odd look. They were a political family, the Burr-Alstons, not an empire.

And yet, here they were, ruling an empire on the verge of collapse. And after everything that had happened since 1801, it didn’t feel like madness. It just felt like the natural progression of things. Helping Theodosia run the country felt as natural as running the old plantation with her.

 

Jonathan, Duke of New Jersey, former consort to the now-long-retired Aaron I, had spent most--if not all--of his life affiliated with Aaron. As much of it as he could consciously remember. They’d been...next door neighbors, or something like that, and Aaron and Matt and Ogden (who was also named Aaron, and generally went by his surname with mutual friends to avoid confusion) weren’t allowed to play with anyone else, really. Timothy and Rhoda were, as Jonathan understood, not the kindest or lax-est of guardians. Even  _ Matt _ , six-foot-eight and built like a brick wall, seemed afraid of Rhoda.

Childhood friendship developed through classmateship and later compatriotship during the war, to political alliance--even across party lines, when Aaron joined the Democratic-Republicans while Jonathan and Ogden joined the Federalists. This had dealt a blow to all of their reputations, as the parties grew more and more cliquish and polarized, but the government were even stupider than they let on if they expected Jonathan to choose partisan chest-beating over the man he’d looked up to since before he could even walk.

And over the years, during and after that godawful election, the government managed to prove that they really were stupid. Hopelessly stupid. They cared more about smashing their enemies than about running the country. Not like Aaron, Aaron  _ cared _ about people, Aaron wouldn’t ignore the public in favor of running people he didn’t like out of the political scene over petty squabbles. By the time the takeover started--by the time it was in its early planning stages--Jonathan was more than ready to see the government toppled over. Even an emperor would do a better job of running the country than Thomas Jefferson and his propagandist cronies.

 

Harman, Duke of West Virginia, was probably better acquainted with high society than anyone else in the imperial court. He had never actually been to the British royal court, but the aristocracy was probably the next best thing, and none of the others--especially, irony of irony, Aaron himself--seemed to have any clue what they were doing in assembling something vaguely resembling any other court out there.

One thing that was very different was the conspiracies. Namely, there weren’t any. Back in Western Europe, the higher rungs of society were  _ teeming _ with plots and schemes and corruption. Everyone and their grandmother and their dog was in on  _ something _ . Hell, the whole reason Harman had come to America in the first place was because the  _ something _ he was in on had failed dismally and he hadn’t really been in the mood to get hanged for treason. But when you spend all your life in such an environment, you never really grow out of it, and when Aaron had showed up at his mansion asking for help with a conspiracy to overthrow the government and start an empire, Harman had been all too enthusiastic to get back into the whole conspiracy business. It was familiar. And that Thomas Jefferson guy didn’t seem particularly nice (not that Harman really cared; he would have participated even if Jefferson had been the kindest, sweetest man on Earth. Jefferson being a manipulative son of a bitch just made for a good excuse).

 

John Vanderlyn had been doing art most of his life, but he’d never really imagined he would end up as an imperial court painter. He’d  _ imagined _ the  _ idea _ of such a scenario a couple of times; no one, especially an artist, was immune to fantasizing. But it wasn’t a  _ real _ scenario. Until, of course, his patron took over half the continent and declared himself emperor.

This was far from an inconvenient situation for Vanderlyn, in all honesty. He was quite fond of Aaron, and the time to cut ties with him for reputation’s sake had come and gone  _ decades _ ago. Vanderlyn had, not quite consciously, but definitely, chosen his side. He sided with his dear friend Theodosia, and with his beautiful muse and patron, Aaron. And, apparently, he had chosen the right side, because Thomas Jefferson was now six feet underground, and Theodosia was ruling the empire with an iron fist, Aaron having abdicated the throne a while ago.

This side--Aaron’s side, Theodosia’s side, the  _ ruling _ side, Vanderlyn’s side--had done well for themselves.

 

Crown Prince Aaron II couldn’t even remember the time before his family had become royalty; he’d only been three years old when the takeover started. The vast majority of his formative years had occurred after the fact. For as long as he could remember, he was in line for the throne of the great American Empire.

Sometimes, his father would tell him about what life for this family was like before the takeover. When Aaron II had been a child, the stories consisted almost entirely of nice stories about his grandfather’s time in the military, or his law career,  _ anything _ but the uncomfortable truth; the entire country wanted the man dead, and probably wouldn’t mind seeing Aaron II and his parents go down with him. Aaron II had learned that in time, and through some very emotional conversations with his parents, who told him the story of the election of 1800 and of Alexander Hamilton and partisanism and all sorts of things Aaron II couldn’t help but envy other children his age for not knowing.

And so, Aaron II grew up a strange combination of bitter and thankful. Thankful for the immense wealth and privilege he enjoyed throughout his life. Bitter over what had driven his family to where they were. Thankful that he would never have to endure what his parents and grandfather had. Bitter that they had had to endure those things in the first place. In a way, he resented the public as an entity. His mother fostered that sentiment.

“The public are fickle, and prone to group polarization. In their animalistic pack hunter mentality, they took everything from our family,” she said. “We rule over them now because we took everything  _ back _ .”

Aaron II had no intention of ruling as harshly as his mother did, but only because of that one sentence:  _ we took everything back _ . His family had already had their revenge. He didn’t need to take any more.

 

***

 

It had been twenty-six years since the republic had become an empire. Some of those twenty-six years had been very peaceful. Most of them had been uneventful. But the past couple of years had been increasingly tense, and word on the street was that an attack on the white house was scheduled to occur any day now, and the whole court knew it.

All anyone could do now was wait.


End file.
